“Was this the triumph of self-knowledge: to suffer more lucidly?” — Edward St. Aubyn Clarity Copy Share Image
“..."the waiting-room atmosphere in which death was the delayed train...” — Edward St. Aubyn Death Copy Share Image
“Is there ever anything to get unduly worried about,' Peter couldn't help asking, 'when there are so many things to worry about… — Edward St. Aubyn Copy Share Image
“In England, art was much less likely to be mentioned in polite society than sexual perversions or methods of torture.” — Edward St. Aubyn Art Copy Share Image
“But that, after all, was the point of romantic folly. If it hadn’t all gone horribly wrong, it wouldn’t have been the… — Edward St. Aubyn Folly Copy Share Image
“People never remember happiness with the care that they lavish on preserving every detail of their suffering.” — Edward St. Aubyn Happiness Copy Share Image
“The Park's nice,' his father conceded, 'but the rest of the country is just people in huge cars wondering what to eat… — Edward St. Aubyn Americans Copy Share Image
“If anything should take place behind closed doors, it was cruelty and betrayal.” — Edward St. Aubyn Behind closed doors Copy Share Image
“At the beginning, there had been talk of using some of her money to start a home for alcoholics. In a sense… — Edward St. Aubyn Alcoholics Copy Share Image
“It was never quite clear to Eleanor why the English thought it was so distinguished to have done nothing for a long… — Edward St. Aubyn Copy Share Image
“Personally I think that competition should be encouraged in war and sport and business, but that it makes no sense in the… — Edward St. Aubyn Art Copy Share Image
“In my rather brief medical practice,' said David modestly, 'I found that people spend their whole lives imagining they are about to… — Edward St. Aubyn Death Copy Share Image
“An editor sleeping with his writer was not as bad as a psychoanalyst sleeping with his patient, or even a professor sleeping… — Edward St. Aubyn Copy Share Image
“With her curling blond hair and her slender limbs and her beautiful clothes, Inez was alluring in an obvious way, and yet… — Edward St. Aubyn Beauty Copy Share Image
“Was he, after all, really a bad man doing a brilliant impersonation of an idiot? It was hard to tell. The connections… — Edward St. Aubyn Copy Share Image
“In the Dodge City of romantic love, crowded with betrayal, abandonment and rejection, it was better to fire first than to take… — Edward St. Aubyn Love Copy Share Image
“Try as one might to live on the edge, thought Patrick, getting into the other lift, there was no point in competing… — Edward St. Aubyn Competing Copy Share Image
“The measure of a work of art is how much art it has in it, not how much ‘relevance’. Relevant to whom?… — Edward St. Aubyn Art Copy Share Image
“He had only just made the Elysian deadline; hanging onto the typescript until the last moment in case there was something still… — Edward St. Aubyn Art Copy Share Image
“If you were madly in love, you’d want me to win,’ said Katherine. “‘I’m not sure that’s true,’ said Sam. ‘I think… — Edward St. Aubyn Egoism Copy Share Image
“The mess that's emerging...at least reflects the truth of my experience, the fact that every contemplation is interrupted, and that every interruption… — Edward St. Aubyn Contemplation Copy Share Image
“But then neither revenge nor forgiveness change what happened. They’re sideshows, of which forgiveness is the less attractive because it represents a… — Edward St. Aubyn Change Copy Share Image
“Simplification was dangerous and would later take its revenge. Only when he could hold in balance his hatred and his stunted love,… — Edward St. Aubyn Love Copy Share Image
“We are entering the Dark Ages, my friend, but this time there will be lots of neon, and screen savers, and street… — Edward St. Aubyn Dark ages Copy Share Image
“As Anne watched her, she could not help thinking of the age-old question every woman asks herself at some time or other:… — Edward St. Aubyn Copy Share Image
“After less than a year together they now slept in separate rooms because Victor's snoring, and nothing else about him, kept her… — Edward St. Aubyn Copy Share Image
“He was just one of those Englishmen who was always saying silly things to sound less pompous, and pompous things to sound… — Edward St. Aubyn Copy Share Image
“That was the wonderful thing about historical novels, one met so many famous people. It was like reading a very old copy… — Edward St. Aubyn Books Copy Share Image
“Thanks for putting that in terms I can easily grasp,’ said Malcolm, without showing the patronizing bitch the slightest sign of irony.” — Edward St. Aubyn Patronizing Copy Share Image
“The shock of standing again under the wide pale sky, completely exposed. This must be what the oyster feels when the lemon… — Edward St. Aubyn Copy Share Image
“How could he think his way out of the problem when the problem was the way he thought...” — Edward St. Aubyn Problem solving Copy Share Image
“An image flashed across her mind of two rams flinging their heads against each other on a rocky mountainside. What did the… — Edward St. Aubyn Copy Share Image
“The Queen was saying only the other day that London property prices are so high that she doesn’t know how she’d cope… — Edward St. Aubyn Buckingham palace Copy Share Image
“Old enough to remember the arrival of 'Have a nice day', Patrick could only look with alarm on the hyperinflation of 'Have… — Edward St. Aubyn America Copy Share Image
“He had become so caught up in building sentences that he had almost forgotten the barbaric days when thinking was like a… — Edward St. Aubyn Mind Copy Share Image
“The leafless trees, with their black branches stretched hysterically in every direction, looked to him like illustrations of a central nervous system… — Edward St. Aubyn Analogy Copy Share Image
“He found her pretty in a bewildered, washed-out way, but it was her restlessness that aroused him, the quiet exasperation of a… — Edward St. Aubyn Copy Share Image
“What could he do but accept the disturbing extent to which memory was fictional and hope that the fiction lay at the… — Edward St. Aubyn Copy Share Image
“There could be no real dialogue between those who still thought that time was on their side and those who realized that… — Edward St. Aubyn Children Copy Share Image
